1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, generally, to medical apparatus or devices, processes for making such apparatus, and apparatus for making such apparatus and practicing such processes. Particularly, the invention relates to medical stents, and stent manufacturing processes and apparatus. Most particularly, the invention relates to methods and apparatus for sheathing a stent, and a sheathed stent. Sheathing a stent is useful to protect the stent surface. Sheathing is particularly useful for protecting the stent during crimping or other processing. Sheathing is most particularly useful for crimping relatively sensitive drug coating, polymer, biodegradable, or any material that can be easily damaged from the crimp process stents. This process includes damage caused from low force crimping on soft materials or high force crimping on very hard materials. The apparatus, and manufacturing methods and apparatus therefor may be useful in other areas.
2. Background Information
The state of the art, in general, includes stents (including drug coated stents) and stent making and crimping methods and apparatus. At present, there are a number of problems in crimping coated stents which occur because the coating is typically soft and somewhat fragile. One solution is to place a thin sheath over the stent prior to crimping. The sheath is typically a thin (0.001-0.002 inch) walled tube which is placed by hand over the stent. The assembly is then placed in a crimping apparatus and the assembly is processed as normal. The sheath is then removed from the stent, again by hand, after crimping. This technology is believed to have significant limitations and shortcomings. Hand placement and removal of the sheath is a time consuming and expensive procedure. Also, tubular sheaths are typically expensive and difficult to apply.
For this and other reasons, a need exists for the present invention.
All US patents and patent applications, and all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated by reference in their entirety.